I have been playing for a while now, and while i dont consider myself a beginner, i am seemingly having a very tough time (err, frustrating time,) with pirates.

I cannot combat them because: 1. I cannot easily search for their bases or their fleet. Exploration ships stop exploring if they have already explored the system, and i refuse to click through 700 star systems to find them. 2. Their raiding tactics are way overpowered. I can have a fleet of 30 ships parked on a planet in defensive stance waiting for them to come in, but regardless, they fly in, drop their troops, raid the planet. My guess is that this is partially due to the response time of ships and attacking. Even if i sit and wait, pause, and click the drop ship as soon as it drops out of hyperspace, they still manage to make it to the planet and loot it. 3. They cancel protection agreements for seemingly no reason, and i cannot tell if buying their warez or information improves the relationship with them or not. I end up with -800 relationship on most of them..

Here are some other frustrating issues i have been having, not sure if they are features or bugs: 1. A fleet set to patrol a planet will not respond in time to effectively protect that planet, even if they are parked on it. Also, it seems like sometimes only a few of the ships in the fleet actually attempt to defend. 2. Upgrading a mining station after tech has been researched (say, putting shields and weapons on it) is frustrating because i cannot tell the system not to automatically retrofit. This results in dozens of stations getting retrofit at the same time and consuming all my resources. I need to be able to control the retrofit like other items. 3. Intelligence agents are seemingly useless. It takes so long to build one up and the only missions that they can do are useless. The chance for failure is so high, its almost not worth even trying to use this feature. How many times can i steal a territory map before my agent is ready for deep cover. At the rate pirates expand and close down on your empire, this "deep cover" feature is the only one i can think of that would give me the ability to destroy them. By the time my agent is trained up (and if, i have actually never gotten that high,) they have built back up...

Anyway, long rant, sorry. Played several hours tonight and what started as a nice time began to get very frustrating. I am enjoying the expansion though :)

Use the 'idle ship' button to find your exploration ships. Steal their territory map, easy to find their bases.

Researching point defence might help shoot down assault pods, make a lot of troops to defend your planets, engage enemies further away from your planets. Not sure if hyperdrive inhibitors exist but they'd be cool if they could stop ships jumping in right next to your planet. You can make defensive bases around your planet, should help a bit.

Pirates are unreliable.

Defensive bases work pretty good as far as I remember.

Retrofit doesn't upgrade everything at once unless you tell it to, bases can be upgraded individually.

Agents aren't useless, would be nice if they had slightly better mission percentages though, it can take alot of training before they can do the harder missions. If you want to see where the pirate ships are you could try stealing the operations map, it's much easier than going for deep cover.

Pirate raids are indeed an annoyance. My fleets aren't able to stop them coming in, so what I've started doing is deploying strong land units on target planets instead. It helps some, but actually not always. I think that's the key to finding the right strategy against them though - taking out their troops on land, while your fleet in orbit blows their invasion ships right out of space.

Pirates used to annoy the hell out of me. I used to play the game w/o pirates entirely. Now I think the game is a bit easier with them because when you kill them they give you reputation gains that will help you out with politics. Also, I'm not entirely sure on this part, but it seems like when I use planetary bombers and bomb the hell out of the civilians on enemy planets my reputation takes a HUGE hit, but when I go after the pirates I'm looked at like a saint =O

Sounds like you should take advantage of defensive bases. If you are not already, make the designs yourself. Over time you will get better at making designs and will have bases made for specific things. Also, I would recommend designing some monitoring stations. The long range scanners can be your best friend and when you have these placed in strategic spots, you can see anything incoming from light years away. You can see generally what's in the area, what flies in that space, and if you see pirates you can generally get an idea where to start looking for their base.

Another thing, if you are not already doing it, is using stances. Re-reading what you have posted it does seem like you are utilizing them. The way I go about this, and I show this in my "Let's Plays", is having planetary defenders set on defense and the radius set to system. On top of that, I set up "sector defenders" in strategic spots... Like if I have important mining stations set up in a sector I will set up one of these fleets generally in the middle and set my defense radius to sector. If it's not called sector it's the largest radius you can set. These also overlap my planetary defenders. This seems to do a great job in handling not only pirates but fleets of enemy empire ships. Also, when these ships are set up in these defensive stances this is the only time I will click the automation button in the game. They will handle the pirates no problem and stay within the parameters you set.

Intel agents are really not useless. Yeah, you get some bad ones at times and their percentages blow... but you will get past that. If you can, use them to steal territory maps of the pirates you want to destroy. This comes in handy a lot.

Someone here mentioned using the 'idle ship' button to find your exploration ships. IMO, the best way to find your ships is to use the UI buttons on the far left side of your screen. You can click the exploration ships button and you will see specifically exploration ships in the list, what they are doing, and their location. The buttons on the left side of the UI is your best friend.

Defensive bases are of limited use against pirates tbf, even missile ranges aren't far enough to take them out before their assault pods are released

Having troops on the ground is the best way, rarely do the pirates release enough to overrun them, downside is, they get really expensive

quote:

ORIGINAL: necaradan666 Not sure if hyperdrive inhibitors exist but they'd be cool if they could stop ships jumping in right next to your planet. You can make defensive bases around your planet, should help a bit.

They exist but 1) IIRC, they don't work on bases 2) Only prevent ships jumping out, not jumping in

I have used fleet postures to defend an area, but again, they respond too slow and by the time they arrive the planet has been looted and the construction destroyed.

Regarding defensive bases, i love these, but the problem is I cannot seem to get anything built on the planet because as soon as i start the planet gets raided and whatever is being constructed gets stalled. Additionally, my private sector ships keep flying to the planet in a show of lemmings jumping to their deaths...

If i could give up the planet, abandon it, I would. Either that or tell private ships to steer clear...

Park a large fleet on the target. Consider to have a fleet in reserve in case they are whittled down. Then build a spaceport, which build is defended by the large fleet. If you got the spaceport up, it is easy enough to keep the normal raids away, as any damage taken can be repaired at that spaceport. You may have to manually react to attacks, though.

Spaceports are not safe against pirates either, but they seem a bit weak at release, and some ships and a spaceport should stop the smaller raids that are so common.

The issue I have with defense fleets is that the defenders always take some damage from pirate escorts/frigates due to rail guns and gravitic weapons. This damage adds up. Spaceports can both repair and shoot on their own.

I cannot seem to get anything built on the planet because as soon as i start the planet gets raided and whatever is being constructed gets stalled.

I had this problem as well. Solution to this is to have a strong defensive fleet that covers the building-process. It can take some time but eventually a strong enough fleet will get the job done. Just make sure to have logistics in place. Once the spaceport (I preffer those over defensive bases - just make em larger) is done, move on to the next colonization project.

EDIT: also, killing pirate bases and their construction ships in the area will also reduce the trouble.

Why is it when the AI empires cancel protection agreements, I sweep in and destroy/capture everything they have built and they still refuse to pay protection money? It seems if you destory their stuff, they are less likely to pay protection money? Is there a way around this?

TRAIN TROOPS. problem solved. for finding their base...i'll give you a hint: Agents and about agents bein' useless: they are FAR from it,in fact they are overpowered. you can steal tech from other empires,and if shakturi is enabled,you can steal top tech from guardians,while everyone except you don't have even half of the tech tree. and who train their agents on pirates ? it's like train a dog to fly. train them on empires.